British Council: Anglické reálie 9

For better or worse?

An incredible 66 per cent of marriages in the UK end in divorce,which is the highest rate in Europe. The rate is continuing to riseas well. Will it get close to 100 per cent one day?

What on earth is happening to the UK to cause such a phenomenon?Many consider the family to be the basic building block of society.If marriages and families are falling apart, is UK society also falling apart?Is the divorce rate a symptom of some sort of social crisis? Is the UK'scultural identity disintegrating?

It's quite difficult these days to say what the UK's cultural identity is.We're all familiar with British traditions and customs, but they don't reallyseem to be a big part of modern life in the UK. It is inaccurate to thinkthat all British men are gentlemen who wear bowler hats. That is not whatthe UK is like generally. It is wrong to think that we all live in quiet, sleepyvillages and play cricket. We don't all drink tea with milk. The UK of todayis one of the most multicultural countries on earth. There are exotic sightsand sounds on the street corners of every British city. British cuisine isnow one of the most diverse around. Everyone speaks with a differentaccent. The strange and the bizarre are quite common in the UK.

Is such diversity a good thing? Well, it makes the UK a very exciting placeto live. There are new ideas everywhere. All the senses are stimulated.There is great freedom to be who you want to be, and most people willnot criticise you for who you are. Yet such freedom seems to come at acost. It's not all happy families. There has been a significant number ofrace riots in both the south and north of England over the last 50 yearsof British history. Some British people regard ethnic minorities as comingto the UK to steal jobs. The credit crunch has only increased this feeling,of course, because unemployment rates have risen. This year, the politicalparty known as the British National Party (BNP) won two seats on localUK councils and a seat in the European Parliament.

So, it could be argued the breakdown of marriages in the UK is in somepart because of the pressures put upon families by wider problems inBritish society. It will be interesting to see if the divorce rate also increasesbecause of the financial pressures put upon families by the credit crunch.Many people become stressed and unhappy when they lack financialsecurity, and that can then make their home life or family life stressedand unhappy as well.

Another possible reason for the high divorce rate might be that marriageno longer has the same value or meaning for British people as it oncedid. Church attendance in the UK has been falling for the last 50 years,suggesting fewer people consider marriage a holy institution. Since 1991,there has been a drop of 50 per cent in people getting married in churchrather than a register office. Bizarrely, Christian missionaries now cometo the UK, whereas 800 years ago, the UK was sending Christianmissionaries out around the world.

Then there is the financial side to getting married. In the past, marriedcouples paid lower government taxes than singles. That tax incentivehas now disappeared. In addition, the cost of a 'white wedding' in the UK,once every girl's dream, is now so high (a minimum of #194#Ł10,000) thatincreasingly few people can afford it.

What does it all mean? Will marriage disappear completely in the UKone day? The answer is: probably not. The reality is that the institutionof marriage is changing with British society, so has a good chanceof survival. Since the introduction of 'civil partnerships' in the UK on5 December 2005, thousands of same-sex marriages have taken placeevery year. The dissolution rate (effectively, the divorce rate) is less thanone per cent. The UK has made a lot of progress in the area of gay rightssince homosexual acts were decriminalised in 1967. It's probably justas well, since otherwise no one would be happily married in the UK.